Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: ecstatic
  • Music: The crows arguing outside my window.

ONCE BROKEN FAITH open thread!

To celebrate the release of Once Broken Faith, here. Have an open thread to discuss the book. Judging by the comments I'm seeing, some of you have had time, and I'd really, really rather book discussion (sometimes including spoilers) didn't crop up on other posts.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

Seriously. If anyone comments here at all, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. So please don't read and then yell at me because you encountered spoilers. You were warned. (I will not reply to every comment; I call partial comment amnesty. But I may well join some of the discussion, or answer questions or whatnot.) I will be DELETING all comments containing spoilers which have been left on other posts. No one gets to spoil people here without a label.

You can also start a discussion at my website forums, with less need to be concerned that I will see everything you say! In case you wanted, you know, discussion free of authorial influence, since I always wind up getting involved in these things.

Have fun, and try not to bleed on the carpet.
Tags: discussion post, once broken faith, toby daye
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  • 154 comments
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The Brown children's heritage

M Reed

September 7 2016, 21:51:10 UTC 10 months ago

Toby makes a very similar remark in the main text (in regards to Karen rather than Cassie) -- specifically, wondering if Karen might be a changling (in the original meaning of the word -- a child swapped at birth). Toby /didn't/ actually try to measure Karen's heritage, however.

Just throwing this out there: Perhaps they are the Roane reborn? I believe it was mentioned in one of the past books that they were a race of Seers. If true, this /would/ tie up quite a few loose ends, wouldn't it?

RE: The Brown children's heritage

M Reed

September 8 2016, 21:52:22 UTC 10 months ago

Additional notes after some research:

Toby actually meets a pure-blood Roane -- and yes, she is a seer. She is also specifically described as having blue eyes (One Salt City, Kindle Edition, page 249): "...and a golden-haired woman with the uniformly blue eyes characteristic of the Roane."). No other details are provided about the eyes, however -- but we can safely assume that they aren't unusually bright, because /that/ is a characteristic of the Tylwyth Teg (it comes up repeatedly whenever Walter is introduced).

Cassandra's eyes are specifically described as blue in the Drams and Slumbers novella (Once Broken Faith, Kindle Edition, page 377: "...They were an unprepossessing shade of blue, the sort of thing no one would choose for an illusion unless they were natural."). The color of Karen's eyes doesn't seem to be given in Once Broken Faith -- despite several obvious opportunities to do so (her eyes are mentioned in the context of tears in several places), although given that Karen appears many times in this book it is very likely that I missed something.

Oddly, Cassandra's eyes are described as "blue-grey" in A Local Habitation (during the birthday scene near the beginning of the book), but the none of the other Browns eye color is stated (in that scene -- Karen also plays a large role in this book, so short of re-reading the entire book). There are several reasonable explanations for this, though: "Something changed between A Local Habitation and Once Broken Faith, either in that book or in 'One Salt Sea' " or "Just a continuity glitch" or even "Toby was just flat-out wrong in A Local Habitation, as identifying the eye color of those she meets /isn't/ one of her powers :)"

So, yeah, the theory looks to have some legs.